Contrasting Time

Having some “go to” locations when you are down on inspiration is a critical tool for any street photographer. Taken in Centre Place – you can read more about the location here – a place I often go to when in need of some easy pickins’… The lens was medium format 80mm, and relatively slow at F4.

The contrasting of the subjects moving on a plane close to the lens vs the relative stability of the guy working in the cafe heightens the interest of the image. There is a real tension between the people motoring along the laneway and the relative stillness of the barista.

There is also some natural framing of the shop front which helps separate the two planes in the image.

The only downside was in loading the film something went haywire! You can see sprocket holes along the top of the image – I would love to say it was a special and unique light that was captured, but I am pretty sure I wasn’t that lucky!

The more time you spend with the image, the more little details that start to appear. I love the guy on the far left, recessed right back into his cafe, but kinda looking out to see what is happening.

I have a couple of ND Filters but don’t experiment with them much. The natural light conditions (which are usually a bit dark in Centre Place) combined with the relatively slow lens to produce the blurry movement over the longer shutter exposure. Maybe something I need to go back and revisit?

One of my favourite self portraits (below) was taken using a similar technique – but had the camera set on a tripod with timer. I just started walking towards it as the timer started beeping! It was taken at about 5.30am before any foot traffic arrived at Centre Place!